Teachers in Rhode Island currently maintain their certification by showing evidence of continuous professional development. Creating a personal PD plan is a unit-wide assignment in the School of Education for all student teachers. The steps below are designed to guide you through this process so that we can complete it efficiently.
Reflect on your teaching so far. Choose one area that you know you need to strengthen. Use this area to list 1-3 needs that might serve as
What is the need?
How will improvement help your students?
How will improvement help your school?
RIBT Standard/Element Addressed?
1.
Converting cookbook experiments to inquiry tasks.
being able to use authentic inquiry tasks will allow students to take charge of their learning and develop scientific design procedures
many standardized tests now have inquiry tasks included in the science sections asking students to design experiments accounting for correct variables as well as viability.
2.
having higher level questions for my closing of lessons to have students to think about until the next class.
helps students maximize learning time and time on task in class, gives students opportunities to think more in depthon the topic to aid in the lower level understanding
students who are able to think abstractly about topics,can summarize, predict based on trends can carry these skills to other subjects
3.
incorporating authentic activities and examples into the minutiae of chemical bonding and naming tasks
students will make the real world connections to material, making it more interesting and more memorable
students test scores will improve and it will make them better prepared for future science classes
Formulate a professional development goal based the needs that you have identified. This goal should be:
measurable/observable
should lead to improvement of teaching, student achievement, and/or improvement of learning environment.
should describe new knowledge or skills that you will acquire and how that knowledge/skill will affect the school/district setting.
linked to applicable Rhode Island Beginning Teacher Standards and elements, e.g. RIBTS 2.4.
In the space below describe you goal and plan in two paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, describe a rationale your professional development goal. This rationale should describe the goal, the personal need that it will address, and how this goal benefits your students and your perspective school.
I. Professional Development Goal
My professional development goal is to be able to convert cookbook laboratory experiments into differing levels of guided inquiry tasks. Students are being increasingly tested on their ability to design an experiment with appropriate controls and variables, yet studies, as well as my own classroom observations, show that many students are unable to successfully design an experiment that can test what they say it will test. I am somewhat comfortable with making a completely unguided inquiry task from a cookbook experiment, but I am not comfortable with how to make one that provides much more guidance and successively scaffold it down to unguided in successive tasks throughout the year. I would like to learn how to turn a single experiment into multiple levels of guided inquiry so that I can use it no matter what order I happen to teach the topics in year to year. It also would be helpful for any individual students that either need additional help and accommodations as well as those students who need additional challenges.
Now that you have a PD goal, think about what type of learning opportunities you will participate in to address your needs. Use these links to investigate learning options:
Based on what you have found out, write a 1-2 paragraph narrative outlining at least two ways (PD categories) you will engage in engage in by the end of your first year of teaching. For each activity, explain how you think it will address the need that you have identified.
II. Professional Development Plan
My plan for meeting my professional development goal is to take a class at a local university or through NSTA on the process involved in creating scaffolded inquiry tasks from cookbook experiments. There is a class offered at Salve Regina University that involves using a process to create the inquiry tasks, administer it to your class, then reflect on the experience and additional changes to be made. The teachers then present the original experiment, the inquiry they developed, the success of it, and their reflections to the PD class and get feedback from their peers. This type of experience would be very helpful in figuring out how to make multiple levels of inquiry from a single experiment. The PD goal can be measured by my products, that is whether each inquiry task I create and use is available in multiple levels, and the success of the tasks in aiding the students' understanding of the topic as evidenced by their test/quiz scores. Another way to meet this PD goal would be by seeking out mentorship from another Chemistry teacher in the building and ask for input and criticism of my self written inquiry tasks. More experienced teachers would be able to help me scale the guidance up and down for multiple ability levels As needed.
Teachers in Rhode Island currently maintain their certification by showing evidence of continuous professional development. Creating a personal PD plan is a unit-wide assignment in the School of Education for all student teachers. The steps below are designed to guide you through this process so that we can complete it efficiently.
Formulate a professional development goal based the needs that you have identified. This goal should be:
In the space below describe you goal and plan in two paragraphs.
In the first paragraph, describe a rationale your professional development goal. This rationale should describe the goal, the personal need that it will address, and how this goal benefits your students and your perspective school.
I. Professional Development Goal
My professional development goal is to be able to convert cookbook laboratory experiments into differing levels of guided inquiry tasks. Students are being increasingly tested on their ability to design an experiment with appropriate controls and variables, yet studies, as well as my own classroom observations, show that many students are unable to successfully design an experiment that can test what they say it will test. I am somewhat comfortable with making a completely unguided inquiry task from a cookbook experiment, but I am not comfortable with how to make one that provides much more guidance and successively scaffold it down to unguided in successive tasks throughout the year. I would like to learn how to turn a single experiment into multiple levels of guided inquiry so that I can use it no matter what order I happen to teach the topics in year to year. It also would be helpful for any individual students that either need additional help and accommodations as well as those students who need additional challenges.Based on what you have found out, write a 1-2 paragraph narrative outlining at least two ways (PD categories) you will engage in engage in by the end of your first year of teaching. For each activity, explain how you think it will address the need that you have identified.
II. Professional Development Plan
My plan for meeting my professional development goal is to take a class at a local university or through NSTA on the process involved in creating scaffolded inquiry tasks from cookbook experiments. There is a class offered at Salve Regina University that involves using a process to create the inquiry tasks, administer it to your class, then reflect on the experience and additional changes to be made. The teachers then present the original experiment, the inquiry they developed, the success of it, and their reflections to the PD class and get feedback from their peers. This type of experience would be very helpful in figuring out how to make multiple levels of inquiry from a single experiment. The PD goal can be measured by my products, that is whether each inquiry task I create and use is available in multiple levels, and the success of the tasks in aiding the students' understanding of the topic as evidenced by their test/quiz scores. Another way to meet this PD goal would be by seeking out mentorship from another Chemistry teacher in the building and ask for input and criticism of my self written inquiry tasks. More experienced teachers would be able to help me scale the guidance up and down for multiple ability levels As needed.